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BI-COMMUNAL ADVENTURE ON THE HIGH SEAS

Simon Lavington, Project Organiser & Volunteer Watch Leader, Tall Ships

Crewing on a traditional square-rigged sailing ship is an awesome experience. For a first-timer, the combination of physical team-work in a strange and sometimes dangerous environment is life-changing. The Tall Ships Youth Trust, a UK charity founded in 1956, offers this experience to 16 to 25-year-olds as an effective way of developing self-confidence and the ability to get on with people of differing backgrounds.

In the summer of 2004 and 2005, mixed groups of young Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots sailed on Tall Ships voyages – thanks to generous sponsorship from UNDP and private donors. The results in terms of increased bi-communal understanding have been heart-warming. The Cypriot crews have held reunions, given presentations to schools and been the subject of enthusiastic media attention. Some of these young people and their parents are now helping to organise the next voyage which will take place in August 2006. It is planned that six Turkish Cypriots and six Greek Cypriots will join 36 young people from other countries in Europe for a ten-day voyage from Gibraltar to Minorca – a distance of some 700 miles.

On board the 600-tonne ship the crew of 48 young people are divided into three teams, or watches. An experienced volunteer Watch Leader acts as mentor and instructor, assigning duties and making sure that everyone is happy to take their turn at helming, sail-setting, cleaning the ship and all the other day-and-night activities that are necessary to keep a large vessel seaworthy. Duties on board are gender-blind so that the crew soon get used to living and working in close proximity to ship-mates of various shapes and sizes! The pattern of watch-keeping – four hours on and eight hours off – becomes the rhythm of life. For a few days the cares of the outside world simply fade into insignificance, to be replaced by the companionship of the Watch.

Maintaining a square-rigged vessel to the highest international standards of safety is a costly exercise. The Tall Ships Youth Trust owns two such ships, offering an all-year-round programme of voyages in various locations from the Baltic to the Caribbean (see: www.tallships.org). Each vessel is crewed by six full-time professional officers, who supervise the volunteer Watch Leaders and volunteer crew members. The role of volunteers in fund-raising and in running the ships helps to set the Trust’s unique ethos – an ethos which combines professionalism with humour, rigour with informality and excitement and challenge with a compassion for those who encounter difficulties. The feeling of comradeship at the end of each voyage is something that cannot easily be conveyed to those who have not experienced it.

Returning to the Cypriot context, the difficulties of organising bi-communal voyages should not be underestimated. Square-rigged ships may be visually iconic but try explaining the Tall Ships ethos to those who associate voyages with ‘luxury leisure cruises’! The high cost per participant also has to be explained. The cost-benefit justification finally rests on empirical evidence, namely the observed long-term positive effects on hearts and minds. Nevertheless, for various cultural and political reasons, fund-raising for the bi-communal voyages amongst indigenous Cypriot organisations has so far proved challenging. This is why the support of ACT for the 2006 project has been crucial.

Six Turkish-Cypriots and six Greek-Cypriots will be selected by interview for the August voyage. Further information about the project can be found at: www.sweetlemons.org.uk.